Hi,
I bought a stainless steel saute pan to follow some recipes in some TV shows. I was wondering if it's normal for it to turn black (burnt on stuff that won't come off) in some spots or change colour to blueish hues. In other words the shows must be using a brand new pan for every recipe right? Or am I really not taking care of it properly?

Hi,
I bought a stainless steel saute pan to follow some recipes in some TV shows. I was wondering if it's normal for it to turn black (burnt on stuff that won't come off) in some spots or change colour to blueish hues. In other words the shows must be using a brand new pan for every recipe right? Or am I really not taking care of it properly?

If you have burnt on stuff that won't come off, try soaking it in hot water and then scrubbing with a mild abrasive like Barkeeper's Friend. If it still doesn't come off, you can upgrade to a stronger abrasive like Ajax and finally to steel wool or S.O.S. It should come off by that point.

Color changes are caused by the overheating of the steel. This is generally caused by using too much heat on your burners. Unfortunately, cheap stainless steel pans are usually very thin and in this case even low heat can cause discoloration. If the discoloration is not bad, Barkeeper's Friend can take care of the color change, but on some pots the color change will be permanent.

In general, most cooking shows won't use plain stainless steel for their cookware and will probably use a stainless steel pot with an aluminum disc or aluminum layer to help spread the heat. This allows cooking with a lower flame (since the heat is more evenly distributed less heat is needed to warm up the cold spots and therefore the hot spots are usually not hot enough to cause the steel to discolor). Generally, I don't use anything over medium heat unless I'm boiling water in a cheap pot or cooking with my cast iron wok.

Hi,
I bought a stainless steel saute pan to follow some recipes in some TV shows. I was wondering if it's normal for it to turn black (burnt on stuff that won't come off) in some spots or change colour to blueish hues. In other words the shows must be using a brand new pan for every recipe right? Or am I really not taking care of it properly?

Hey,

What Michael said and you can put warm water in the pan and put on stove over low heat. Heat water and with a wooden spatula, slowly work the stuck on stuff, off.

Also, preheat the pan a bit before you install your oil or fat. This will help things NOT stick to your pan.
The outside of my stainless pans look like HELL, total hell. The inside nearly looks as though with regular cleaning with barkeepers friend. Oh yes.

First of all, you seem to be overheating your pan considerably. While sauteing in a stainless pan will leave some caramelized (brownish) residue, it usually cleans out pretty easily. Black carbonized residue that won't scrub out easily is a sign that you're heating the pan way too much.

This could be due to a couple of things. If this is a high-quality pan, you may have the heat up too high. Really good stuff generally requires only medium-high heat at most. You might also have a cheap, thin pan, in which case almost any application of heat will cause stuff to burn on.

To clean the carbonized spots off your cookware, use oven cleaner, being careful not to get it on any wood or plastic handles the cookware might have. Spray on, let sit overnight, wash off. Then tackle the brown and blue spots (called "heat tint") with Barkeeper's Friend or Cameo Stainless Cleaner, both of which are available in your grocery store, somewhere near the Comet Cleanser and Bon Ami.

If Barkeeper's or Cameo does not get rid of the heat tint, it's permanent. Hope this helps.